Proposed LGBT protections blocked

When a bill that would prohibit discrimination in jobs and housing based on sexual orientation stalled in a Senate committee Monday, a procedural move gave it another chance at life Tuesday. To no avail.

“We are still deadlocked,” Sen. Joseph Abruzzo, a Boynton Beach Democrat and sponsor of the bill (SB 120), said Tuesday. “I believe we need to move it forward, but we do not have the votes at the present time.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee then tabled the measure — known as the “Competitive Workforce Act” — meaning that its chances are likely nil for this legislative session. The House version of the bill (HB 45), filed by Rep. Holly Raschein, R-Key Largo, has not been heard in House committees.

The proposal would update the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992 to add protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the workplace, housing and other public accommodations. Monday’s Senate Judiciary Committee was the first time it had drawn a hearing.

But the panel’s boisterous two-hour hearing showed fierce opposition to the proposal from the religious right — mostly on the question of public accommodations such as rest rooms and locker rooms. Abruzzo added that he’d met with “the pastors” Tuesday without getting their support.

“I understand where they are coming from,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I know even they believe that they don’t want people to be discriminated against.”

Senators had little objection to the bill’s provisions dealing with jobs and housing, Abruzzo noted. Committee Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, said a second vote on the bill Tuesday would result in the same 5-5 tie as the day before.

Nevertheless, Monday’s meeting was farther than the proposal had gotten in roughly a decade.

“I want to thank very much those individuals that haven’t had their voice heard in this process,” Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, said. “You may not get where you’re going to get this year. (But) you opened the door to a discussion.”